3 Count: Comic Conned

Something went wrong, for Faye Wray and King Kong...

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Concerns Over Piracy Prompt 20th Century Fox to Skip San Diego Comic-Con 2016

First off today, Josh Rottenberg at the Los Angeles Times reports that Fox has announced it will be skipping San Diego Comic-Con this year due to concerns over piracy.

Last year at the conference Fox presented a preview of the then-upcoming films Deadpool and X-Men: Apocalypse to the crowd. However, the clips leaked online, much to the ire of the film’s producers.

This isn’t the first time that Fox has skipped Comic Con, having done so in 2012. Also, various other studios skipped last year because of release schedule timing. Still, it’s unusual for the studio to lay the blame on its hiatus on piracy.

2: Legendary, Warner Bros. Sued for Allegedly Stealing ‘Kong: Skull Island’ Story

Next up today, Ashley Cullins at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that artist Joe DeVito has filed a lawsuit against Legendary and Warner Brothers claiming that he is the creator of much of the universe in Kong: Skull Island and that the film is being released next year without giving him compensation or credit for his work.

According to DeVito, he created an entire universe surrounding Skull Island with the blessing of the original creator’s family. He claims to have been working with the family since 1992 to create an origin story for King Kong. In 2014 he pitched the idea to Legendary and also signed a deal with Warner Brothers that was later severed.

However, Legendary would go on to start work on Kong: Skull Island without him and tap Warner Brothers to produce the film. As a reuslt, DeVito claims that the companies owe him $3.5 million in general and punitive damages for breach of implied contract.

3: Jim Sterling Has Figured Out an Ingenious Way of Avoiding YouTube’s Copyright Claims

Finally today, Paul Tamburro at Crave Online reports that YouTube video game critic Jim Sterling has devised a way to avoid having his review videos monetized by third parties when matched by YouTube’s Content ID.

Sterling’s channel is completely supported by his followers on Patreon and, because of that, he opts to make it advertising-free. However, several of his videos were claimed by third parties, which then monetized the clips and ran ads against them. To stop that he began including clips owned by multiple parties so that it would receive multiple Content ID matches. With so many parties claiming the video, none of them are able to monetize it.

Sterling calls the move his “copyright deadlock” and notes that Content ID has forced him to use/infringe additional copyrighted works if he wants to avoid monetization claims from a single fair use. However, it’s worth noting that Sterling is unable to monetize his own videos because of the Content ID claims, so the system will not work for those who want to profit from their own YouTube ads.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

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